Primal Instincts

by Susan Sizemore

Not compatible with human DNA. What the hell does that mean? Really? And I hate being stuck here. I need to talk to—

  “You’re thinking far too loudly,” the vampire beside her said.

  “Sorry,” Saffie answered, her voice muffled by the pile of bedclothes covering her.

  Greg had stripped the other double bed in their motel room and spread the coverings on hers, insisting that she was the one who needed to stay warm. The building’s furnace was as dead as everything else that used electricity in the area. The temperature was dropping by the moment and the howling wind was hard on her nerves. It was a hell of an unpleasant night. Inside and out.

  “I can’t sleep,” she said.

  “I noticed.”

  Greg was on the bed with her but lying on top of the covers. It wasn’t the most practical way of sharing body heat, but it was chaste and proper. Saffie thought her father would appreciate this Prime’s gentlemanly behavior.

  “Aren’t you cold?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  She let it go. Inviting him under the blankets might sound like she was coming on to him, as Primes could easily misconstrue any comment or gesture as having a sexual meaning. It had been a few months since she’d been in the company of vampires, but dealing with their weirdness was as automatic for her as breathing.

  Saffie turned onto her back, though it took some effort. The cocoon of blankets was heavy. She felt imprisoned even though she was warm and the bed was soft.

  “It’s been a long day. Sleep now.”

  Greg’s voice was soft, persuasive. His thoughts teased suggestions around the edges of hers.

  “Telepathy doesn’t work on me,” she said. She could recognize the flux of mental energy, but she couldn’t use it. Her thoughts could sometimes be read, but telepathy certainly couldn’t be used to give her orders or alter her memories. “Haven’t you read my file?”

  “I forgot that detail,” he answered. “I’m only trying to help. You need to rest.”

  She needed to get home. She needed to talk to her dad. But there was no Wi-Fi available, no landline working, no cellular signal. She wished she was a telepath, because she couldn’t bear to ask Greg to interrupt her father again. Greg had contacted him already and told her that Tobias was very busy saving Los Angeles right now and would be in touch later.

  She understood.

  But she also needed answers.

  “What do you think I am?” she blurted out. “What am I?”

  There was considerable silence before Greg said. “I think you’re a who, not a what.”

  “But my DNA—”

  “Is a bunch of twisty squiggles that are almost the same as any other primate’s. It’s not like you don’t already know you’re adopted and that the world is full of weirdness.”

  “I’m not human!”

  “You’re as human as I am.”

  Saffron didn’t fall for the obvious retort that he was a vampire. She didn’t say anything, as she realized she was pulling what Dee called a Needy Greedy, and had been for days. She reminded herself that the mortal members of the Crew had to be ten times tougher than everybody else. Don’t bleed on the outside, it attracts sharks, Dee always told her.

  “I’m going to go to sleep now.” But before she did, she added, “I’ve got a bad feeling about what’s going on out there.”

  Gregor didn’t think the girl was talking about the weather, and he agreed with her.

  It wasn’t the howling of the wind that set his senses on nervous alert. Nor was it the uncomfortably cold room that made him restless. Something wicked this way comes, he thought, and that didn’t make any sense. He was the official wicked big bad wolf in this Red Riding Hood’s life.

  Bad analogy, he thought, recalling what had happened to the original Red’s BBW. Still, he had a feeling that the huntsman was on the way.

  Once the girl’s heart rate told him she was deeply asleep, Gregor slipped from the bed. He pulled the curtain back from the window and gazed outside. His eyes searched through the storm, but more importantly, he concentrated his other senses on everything around him.

  He counted the mortal heartbeats in the building and sensed no threat from their fellow stranded travelers. He stared out into the darkness with eyes tuned to all available light. He listened to the silence beneath the wind. He hunted for sparks of thought beyond mortal consciousness.

  Oh, yeah. There was something out there.

  Who? And why?

  Dark Angels? No, the heroes were busy. If it wasn’t the good guys, it must be the bad. Reinforcements sent by the Master? Whoever it was, he didn’t fancy the company. The girl had been entrusted to him and he was keeping her to himself.

  He went over to shake Saffron awake. Her eyes opened instantly. She allowed herself to be afraid for only a moment.

  He nodded in acknowledgment. “Get dressed.”

  “I am dressed,” she mumbled, struggling to throw off all the layers of blankets. “I went to bed dressed.”

  “We’re leaving.”

  She didn’t ask questions but quickly put on her shoes and coat and picked up her bag. There were advantages to raising a child in a military unit.

  He waited by the door with the car keys in his hand, admiring her ability to move efficiently in what was near-total darkness for her, not letting her mortality get in the way.

  He ushered her outside. The parking lot was full of vehicles, and they were covered in snow. He wasn’t even sure which SUV was the one he’d stolen earlier in the day.

  It was the girl who led him forward through the heavy drifts.

  Gregor kept Saffron in sight through the swirling snow, but he was surrounded by a growing sense of danger. Vampires were coming.

  “They’re here,” Saffron said. They’d reached the middle of the parking lot. She turned back to him. “Even I can feel them.”

  “They aren’t friendlies.”

  The angry, hungry mental pressure told him that. Tribe Primes, but not anybody he knew.

  “What the hell is going on?” he demanded.

  “Don’t ask me,” the girl replied.

  “I wasn’t told to rescue you. I was told to bring you in.”

  They were shouting at each other above the growing roar.

  The already fierce wind was picking up, turning the snow into a hurricane. They looked up.

  “Who the hell would fly a helicopter in this?” Gregor asked.

  “A vampire,” Tobias Strahan’s daughter replied. Nothing seemed to surprise her.

  The chopper that came down onto the parking lot was huge, some sort of military transport. The Primes who jumped out carried weapons, the sort that fired silver bullets. One of the Primes grabbed the girl. The others pointed their guns at him.

  “No, no,” a voice called out from the entrance of the copter. “Bring him along. I know who he is, and I never pass up the chance to recruit a Tribe boy.”

  The Primes gestured for him to move toward the helicopter with their guns.

  Saffron looked sharply back at him, her expression full of betrayal and fury. “Tribe?”

  He shrugged.

  “Are you telling me I’ve been kidnapped twice today?”

  Chapter Forty-three

  “So, a vampire walks into a bar . . .”

  Tobias smiled as Francesca came up behind him at the patio door in Ben Lancer’s kitchen. He could see a trio of werefolk guards patrolling the grounds out in the darkness. A Prime was on watch by the front door. Everyone else in the house was asleep.

  They were alone—a situation more dangerous than his encounter with the Purist.

  “At least I walked out of the bar.”

  “You saved a lot of mortals.”

  “You Clan girls get turned on by heroics, don’t you?”

  She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed herself against his back. Heat shot through him, and something much more powerful than lust permeated him as well.

  He was . . . complete when they were
together.

  “Ouch,” he said. “I was stabbed in the back, you know.”

  “I felt your pain when the silver slashed you and ran to your side.”

  He glanced over his shoulder, eyebrow raised skeptically. “Really?”

  “No. My cousin Colin called to say you got a tiny cut.” She pressed her forehead between his shoulder blades. “I did feel a little twinge.”

  “I was very brave.”

  “It’s your job.”

  “Aren’t you going to kiss it and make it all better?”

  “Probably.” She stroked her cheek across his shoulders. A cat claiming territory? “Whatcha doing?”

  “Trying to reach Saffie.” He held his BlackBerry up. “Not a sip, not a voice mail, nothing for hours. It’s not like her not to keep in touch, especially when—”

  “Have you checked the weather lately? You do know there’s a major snowstorm on the East Coast, right? Power outages have to be rough on people without telepathy.”

  “Maybe that’s it. But—”

  “You’ve got a bad feeling?”

  “I do.”

  She sighed, and he felt her suddenly sharing his worry. “Have you tried telepathy?”

  “Not yet. She’s resistant to it. She’s probably asleep,” he added. “I don’t want to give her nightmares.”

  He put the BlackBerry away and turned to face Francesca. She kept her arms around him. He put his hands on her shoulders. They looked into each other’s eyes, and Tobias had no idea how long that went on. They didn’t share thoughts or do anything but be together.

  He hadn’t realized how tired he was until Francesca’s closeness gave him back some energy. He’d deliberately come back to his headquarters instead of going to her. Of course she’d taken matters into her own hands. He hadn’t consciously known she was coming to him, hadn’t consciously called her—yet here they were. Together.

  “Damn,” he muttered after a while. “We are so screwed.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “Are you accepting it?”

  She was the infamous Flare! She’d never accepted a Prime in her life. Now she had her beautifully manicured claws deep in his soul.

  Why me?

  You ought to be flattered.

  Maybe he was. Then again, if he hadn’t been so forceful about claiming her that first time they wouldn’t have been together. He couldn’t regret that and ached to do it again.

  Together.

  What a frightening word that was.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing,” she said. “I’m just—here.”

  “Why?” he asked. “How?”

  She threw back her head and laughed. Damn, her throat is gorgeous! Her green eyes gleamed with a sexy hint of red when she looked back at him.

  “They let us Clan girls drive, you know. That’s how I’m here. The answer to why is multipart.”

  “Is life a quiz?” he asked.

  “It’s a test.” She sighed. “Always a test. Of loyalty. Of friendship. Of honor. Of will.”

  “Of survival,” he added.

  They agreed on so much, he and this Clan girl who was oh-so-inappropriate for what he thought he wanted. That was how it was supposed to be with bonding, wasn’t it? Two minds, souls, bodies meshing perfectly. How could anyone not want such perfection?

  How could anyone not be terrified of it?

  “Do you know how the Tribes deal with bonding?” he asked, and felt the shiver of horror that went through her mind and body in response. “Tribe females belong to the strongest males. They exist to be bred. They are bought and sold and fought over. Mortal slaves are used for sexual pleasure, but every Prime knows never to become involved with a vampire female. Use their bodies, stay out of their minds. Breed them, then pass them on to their next master as quickly as possible. Try not to taste them; never let them taste you. Never even look into their eyes. There are all sorts of superstitions about how females drain Primes’ strength, many examples of their evil ways. The whole point is to keep Primes from bonding with females.”

  “And look how well that’s worked out for the Tribes. They’re all crazy!”

  “From a Clan princess’s point of view, I suppose you’re right.”

  “It should be right from a Family Prime’s point of view, as well.”

  He shrugged. “I was born into Tribe Minotaur. Deep in my gut I still believe females need to be controlled.”

  “You need to work on that.”

  He grinned. “You love it, woman.”

  “What I love in the bedroom is completely—”

  “My business.”

  She didn’t deny it. “Are you taking this history lesson somewhere?”

  “My sire owned a breeder and fought all the time for the right to keep her to himself. He kept her too long. She got her fangs into him.”

  Her green eyes flashed with anger at his ugly description of Tribe life. She sneered. “What happened? Did they live happily ever after?”

  “They did,” he answered. “They still are. But their bonding destroyed the Minotaur Tribe.”

  “And this was bad how?”

  Her rising anger licked hotly at his senses, turning fury into an aphrodisiac. There was good reason she was known as Flare.

  How very like a Clan female not to see that there was a tragic side to the triumph of his parents’ love story.

  “Their bonding changed my world,” he went on. “Most of my growing up was done in a Family crèche. My adult life is spent actively opposing what’s left of the Tribes. But should the Tribes’ way of life be completely destroyed? Are they completely wrong? Would I have found better solutions for them if I’d remained within the Tribe structure? I have some doubts about the wonder that is bonding. You’re not the only one facing the inevitable with some issues.”

  She pulled away and stomped across the kitchen but stopped at the doorway and grasped the frame so hard the wood cracked beneath her fingers. The pull they had on each other stretched painfully tight between them.

  She couldn’t leave him. He wouldn’t let her if she tried.

  “Damn it!” She whirled back to face him. “I vowed to leave you for your own good, before this . . . instinct took complete control. I wanted it to be my contribution to the Dark Angels. I didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize your leadership.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  She took his words as sarcasm. Her temper continued to blaze. “I believed you were trying to save the Clans and Families—from mortals, from Tribes, from ourselves. I want to believe in your mission, Tobias. Now I’m not sure what your mission is. To make us like the Tribes? To rule the immortal world?”

  What the hell is she talking about? “How can someone I’m bonding with completely misunderstand what I meant?” he asked, bewildered.

  “You dissed your mother! You praised the Tribes’ treatment of women.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  She repeated back to him, verbatim, everything he’d said about his family history.

  Ouch.

  He had to admit that coming from her, it didn’t sound good.

  He held up his hands. “Maybe I didn’t explain myself properly. Aren’t we supposed to just know everything about each other?”

  “I guess not,” she said.

  In a way this was a hopeful sign. It showed that they were individuals who could confuse and annoy and misunderstand each other.

  “Listen,” he said. “I’m worried about my kid, there’s a Prime still out there we have to find, and my back hurts. Sometimes I get a little . . . maudlin, confused, about the past. My parents’ bond was wonderful for them. I’m proud to be a Strahan Prime. In the long run joining the Family was good for many of the Minotaurs, but there were deaths, and there’s still plenty of hatred and sworn vendettas. Their bonding didn’t help promote peace, didn’t help bring a reasonable solution to the Tribes’ problems. I want peace.”

  “Even if you have to kill to get it?”


  “Yes. I’ll fight the Tribes because they make it necessary, but I want the Tribes to survive. They aren’t nice people, but they are a pure expression of our ancient predator nature.”

  “Twisted. Evil.”

  “But we need to acknowledge their culture and persuade them to want to change. Historically bonding is the worst sin to them. I don’t know how that came about, but I also know it’s caused plenty of problems among us civilized vampires too.”

  She nodded. “The mortals have no idea how mild the fight for Helen of Troy was compared to some of our bonding tales.”

  “So maybe I’m a little scared of bonding.”

  “You see it as a weapon? Something that can turn on you?” she asked.

  “Maybe. A little.”

  “Point taken.” She eyed him suspiciously. “Are you scared of bonding in general or of bonding with me?”

  “Yes.”

  Francesca threw back her head and laughed.

  The sight and sound nearly drove him to his knees. He loved her laugh. It sent sparks flying through his blood. Her lovely, long exposed neck when she tilted up her chin was the most erotic sight in the world. Primes would kill for the chance to pierce that soft, warm skin, though he’d strike first if anyone tried. He ached for the chance to fight off a challenger, to prove to her and the world whom she belonged to.

  Tobias rubbed his fingers across his mouth, his aching fangs. His vision was trying to switch into the spectrum where he could see lust as heat and blood. He had to keep himself under control. “Stay on target,” he muttered. “You were leaving to keep from jeopardizing the Angels? To help me? I do appreciate the thought—but didn’t you think I’d have to come after you?”

  “I hoped you’d be stronger than that.”

  “In other words, you wanted to torture me?”

  She laughed again. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to the Reynard Citadel. Not tonight. My mom gave our pilot the holidays off. She did that on purpose to keep me here, you know.”

  “You said you have a pilot’s license.”

  “Am I supposed to steal a plane?”

  “A Dark Angel would.”

  “I’m not—”

  “You are.”

  “You don’t know my Matri.”